Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 9, 1993 TAG: 9307090166
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: BY MARGARET EDDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
The group, commissioned by Gov. Douglas Wilder, expects to draft a final recommendation in August and to hold a public hearing on it this fall.
Wilder, who plans to run for the U.S. Senate after leaving office in January, could make the recommendation his parting act as governor of a state where gun control was once anathema but recently has enjoyed wide public support.
As the seven-member task force was hammering out a proposal, however, data submitted to the committee underscored the potential difficulty in building a public case for banning assault weapons.
Assault weapons are popularly defined as military-style weapons with the ability to rapidly spray out a large number of bullets. This type of weapon accounted for only about 6 percent of the weapons connected with homicide cases last year that were evaluated by the central division of the state's Consolidated Laboratory, said task force member Ann Jones.
Jones, a forensic scientist in that laboratory, cautioned that the figures cover only one region of Virginia and the lab is not involved in all homicide cases even in its area.
Of the 138 firearms evaluated by the lab in homicides in 1992, the largest number were .38- and .357-caliber Magnum revolvers (38), non-assault type 9mm pistols (15) and shotguns (14). Eight of the weapons were categorized as assault weapons.
Other information given the committee revealed that 75 of the 1,458 weapons (5 percent) recovered in crimes in Richmond last year were assault weapons, as were 39 of 550 (7 percent) from January to May this year.
Despite these numbers, several task force members termed the figures "substantial" and argued that assault weapons pose an abnormal threat to public safety.
Earlier in the day, Bill Dolan, the Democratic nominee for attorney general, added his support, backing a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases and the concept of limits on semiautomatic assault weapons. Republican nominee Jim Gilmore opposes gun control legislation.
The weapons are "a real concern for us," said Maj. Charles W. Bennett Jr., deputy chief of the Richmond police and a task force member. They "intimidate, frighten, and control people" and are showing up in the hands of "younger and younger juveniles."
The task force, commissioned by Wilder to define assault weapons and recommend which should be banned, also developed a list of six criteria that characterize assault weapons.
\ WHAT WOULD BE BANNED?\ \ 9mm pistols: A.A. Arms AP-9, Calico M-950, Intratec TEC-9, Intratec TEC-22, MAC-10, MAC-11, Uzi.\ \ Assault rifles: Ak-47 rifles, AK47 "type" weapons, Calico M-950, Uzi-type semiautomatic rifles.\ \ Shotguns: Any shotgun with a revolving cylinder such as the Striker 12. One such gun, the Street Sweeper, was banned by the 1993 General Assembly.
Memo: Shorter version ran in Metro edition.